A. Incineration is burning. At no time in the EnQuest steam reforming process is combustion applied to the input material. Heat is applied to the exterior of the kiln containing the input material. Steam reformation consists of re-arranging carbon and hydrogen atoms into energy-useful gaseous configurations with the use of steam at high temperatures. Unlike the combustion process, steam reformation does not require significant quantities of air, so the release of atmospheric toxins and pollutants from the direct process is practically nil. A. Almost all gasification schemes now in existence are based on pyrolysis, a similar but fundamentally different technology with significantly different performance outcomes. Steam reformation, itself, is a mature technology, but the application of modern materials and technology have transformed it into a state-of-the-art process for converting organic waste to energy. A. The EnQuest process can take the whole municipal waste stream, eliminating the need for separate plastic boxes, energy-intensive collection routes, and sorting. However, if a municipality is committed to recycling items like plastics, newspapers and cardboard, the remaining waste stream – usually wet food material, papers and plastics – is still more than enough to sustain the EnQuest process in almost every municipality. Additionally, steam-reforming waste can be demonstrated to be more environmentally friendly than composting, for example. A. No system is perfect, but the EnQuest process is very close to it. EnQuest steam- reformation takes place in an oxygen-starved environment that avoids the creation of undesirable oxygen compounds like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, sulphur oxides, dioxins and furans that are common to a combustion process. The EnQuest process also incorporates a number of commercially proven cleaning technologies to remove any impurities that may be included in the syngas, so that the final output comfortably exceeds the toughest environmental standards. A. Steam reformation is not new technology, but the state-of-the-art EnQuest process, which uses more robust components supported by computer controls to allow the use of higher temperatures, represents a significant leap in performance over other systems. In addition, there are two specific incentives that were not present even as recently as five years ago. The first incentive is the need to find environmentally friendly waste conversion systems. The second is the need for alternate energy sources given the high prices of oil and gas. Neither of these considerations had the urgency that they clearly have today. A. There is some minor industrial noise, e.g., loaders, etc., but nothing unusual for an industrial application. The only possible smell to the process will be the stockpile of input – particularly municipal solid waste, which will typically be housed in covered storage buildings that will have active odor control systems. A. Ninety-eight percent of the volume of municipal solid waste steam-reforms into usable syngas. The remaining 2% is made up of metals, which are separated and recycled, and a very small volume of inert (non-toxic) solids like glass and clay, which, in the absence of recycling potential, are sent to landfills.

EnQuest Power Corporation (EnQuest) is a privately held Canadian company with revolutionary and proprietary Energy-from-Waste (EFW) technology. The core technology was developed over a period of 30 years by leading scientists in the U.S., and has been used commercially for the management of hazardous and radioactive waste, with the primary focus being on volume reduction.